Dementia: Prevention is possible. You just have to want it

There are almost one and a half million, exactly 1,480,000, people with dementia in Italy, with approximately 4 million caregivers involved. About 600 thousand of these cases of dementia could have been avoided and their burden of suffering and expense avoided. The power of prevention is of little interest to political decision-makers, who pay attention to it only in words but few resources, and even less to citizens who persist in adopting lifestyles that compromise their health, not doing physical activity, eating badly, drinking and smoking as if the future did not concern them.

Federazione Alzheimer Italia has been dealing with dementia prevention for a long time and for July 15 at 6 pm it is proposing a new appointment, a webinar, with the neurologist Simone Salemme , consultant of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità for public health projects concerning dementia and brain health, and Davide Mangani , immunologist researcher of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine of Bellinzona, with Francesca Arosio , psychologist and psychotherapist who has collaborated with the Federazione Alzheimer for many years (just sign up at the link bit.ly/webinar_luglio2025 ). Together they will explore the risk factors, prevention strategies and the role of lifestyle in maintaining brain health.

According to a report by the Lancet Commission, in fact, 45% of the cases of dementia predicted globally by 2050 could be delayed or even avoided by intervening on 14 risk factors : physical inactivity, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, head injuries, infrequent social contact, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, depression, hearing impairment, untreated vision loss and high LDL cholesterol, along with low levels of education and exposure to air pollution. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. But changing your habits is very tiring and not everyone likes the effort.

The recording of the meeting will then be published on the Federation's YouTube channel and relaunched on other social profiles .

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Photo by Brett Wharton on Unsplash